Tony Kanaan (pictured) and Simona de Silvestro of KV Racing Technology made seriousnoise two weeks ago at St. Petersburg, but after sub-par qualifying results, both were unable to break out of mid-pack traffic and had disappointing finishes on Sunday at Barber Motorsports Park.

“It was just a long day,” said Kanaan, who finished 13th in the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama. “I started the race on the primary tires in order to get them out of the way and was hoping to get more speed out of the red alternates to pick up some track position, but once I got stuck in traffic in the middle of the pack, there was nothing I could do.

“[We] lost a handful of spots during our pits and managed to get some of them back at the end of the race, but it was still not our day.”

De Silvestro, who finished 18th, echoed her teammate’s comments on being stuck in traffic.

“At the start [of the race], I kind of got pushed out and lost a few positions and had to work my way back up,” she said. “You know, we were always fighting with different people and different tires and it was really hard to get by, so we kind of got stuck there and it wasn’t great. But, we’ll go on to the next one and hopefully we’ll be alright there.”

With Long Beach coming up next, the team will aim to improve upon their runs there last year. Kanaan had himself a great drive, rising from 19th on the grid to finish fourth, while Rubens Barrichello (now back in Brazil) and E.J. Viso (now with Andretti Autosport) finished ninth and 12th respectively.